Silver Star Mountain

Highway 20 just opened up to Silver Star gate at milepost 171. We slept at the pullout near the gate Saturday night and started skinning up silver star creek at 6am Sunday. In a couple hours we reached a basin around 5000ft with orange flagging for helicopter landings. It looks like heli skiing is over for the season, though. We cut up gradual slopes on the right, then traversed under Vasiliki ridge. We climbed left under a big cleaver, then zig zagged up to silver star col. We were the first ones up, but about 10 other skiers were following our tracks up.

At the col we ditched skis and took a break as the other groups arrived. We took out ice axes and scrambled up to the summit block. It looked a little sketchy, and I’d brought a rope, so we roped up. Aaron belayed me as I wriggled up the 15ft snow-filled chimney and tagged the summit, then I belayed him up.

By 1:30pm we we back to the col, and started the amazing ski back to the car. We arrived by 3:30pm after a few breaks, and started the long 5hr drive back to Seattle.